1. Field of The Invention
This invention relates to fence stretcher bars, and more particularly, to a fence stretcher bar manufactured from a continuously fed, hot dip galvanized bar and to a method of making such a stretcher bar.
2. Brief Description of The Prior Art
Previous galvanized stretcher bars are either stamped from sheet metal or rolled in predetermined lengths prior to galvanizing. Such a method completely coats each bar, but is time consuming in that the bars must be handled as individual items during the galvanizing process. The present invention provides a method of making fence stretcher bars from a continuously fed strip of material.
There are many methods of galvanizing a continuously fed strip of material known in the art. One such method is that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,036,615 to Wean in which a slab of material is rolled into a coil of strip metal, cleaned and then fed into a galvanizing vat. Another process for galvanizing a continuous strip of material is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,696,503 to Krengel et al. After galvanizing, the material is cut to length and formed into the desired shape. In both Wean and Krengel et al., the process is designed to handle relatively wide, thin strips of material, and neither discloses a method of cold-rolling a continuously fed round rod and transferring this to a continuously fed galvanizing process.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,226,817 to Simborg et al. discloses a continuous method for fabricating and galvanizing tubing. At the beginning of this process, a continuously fed flat strip of material is rolled into a tube with a welding process to continuously weld the seam thereof. After the galvanizing process, the material is radially sized and axially cut off. No method is disclosed in Simborg for continuously galvanizing a relatively thick flat strip of material to be cut off to make fence stretcher bars.
None of the cited patents discloses the same galvanizing process as utilized in the present invention. The annealing and galvanizing steps used to treat the continuously fed bar in the present invention have been used previously for treating continuously fed, relatively small diameter round wire such as is used in making chain-link fencing. However, prior to the present invention, no method was known to use this annealing and galvanizing process for a relatively thick, continuously fed flat bar.